Suns at Jazz Game Thread

[82CardsGrad]

This lack of mental toughness is really starting to irritate me and question how Gentry is handling this team off the court. Its not one player who is responsible for this, its the entire team. Nash starts committing multiple turnovers, STAT does not go for rebounds anymore, J-Rich forces up jumpers and everyone else just starts to fall apart. How has this issue not been addressed??

How do we know it hasn't been addressed? Maybe it has, but that doesn't mean we have the players who can actually make the change... We are a very, very soft team. One of the softest teams in the league. No coaching can change this. We just don't have the guys who are willing to get their finger nails dirty... Aside from Lopez, who else is there really? Pathetic...

 

[elindholm]

Also I think Clark is now ready to take Dudley's minutes.

WHAT???? Dudley wasn't very good tonight, but Clark was an outright disaster. He had a plus-minus of -14 in 7 minutes, and this is one case in which that statistic really does tell an accurate story. If you aren't sure, watch the game again and fast-forward to the moments when Clark is on the floor.

 

[TJ]

How do we know it hasn't been addressed? Maybe it has, but that doesn't mean we have the players who can actually make the change... We are a very, very soft team. One of the softest teams in the league. No coaching can change this. We just don't have the guys who are willing to get their finger nails dirty... Aside from Lopez, who else is there really? Pathetic...

I see your point, but this has become so predictable that it tells me nothing has been done to fix it. Or, the message is not being conveyed properly.

 

[82CardsGrad]

I see your point, but this has become so predictable that it tells me nothing has been done to fix it. Or, the message is not being conveyed properly.

You seem to want to keep bringing it back to Gentry. Again, he just might be doing anything and everything to get the point across, but just maybe we have a team of wussies... A team of guys who simply can't mentally make the shift to actually play defense. And if you think about it, what Suns team in the last 8-9 years could? This is nothing new. The Suns could never get the key stop when they needed to. Never could shut down opponents in the 4th quarter, particularly in the playoffs...

 

[Sunburn]

We've had 3 coaches now. One didn't care too much about defense, one's priority was defense, and one who wants to find a balance. Still no defense. What's the problem. Well, what has stayed the same. The common denominator is not the coaches, its the team's core. Addendum - I think we are being exploited athletically. I watch other team's and theyve all been infused with new, young, athletic talent to blend with their veterans. We have new youngsters, but I believe their athleticism and explosiveness is suspect. We get out athleted.

 

[TJ]

You seem to want to keep bringing it back to Gentry. Again, he just might be doing anything and everything to get the point across, but just maybe we have a team of wussies... A team of guys who simply can't mentally make the shift to actually play defense. And if you think about it, what Suns team in the last 8-9 years could? This is nothing new. The Suns could never get the key stop when they needed to. Never could shut down opponents in the 4th quarter, particularly in the playoffs...

The difference between then and now is that even when we expected the Suns to give up big leads, we also expected them to come back and come back strong. Now, once we hit 15+ points, we get nervous. The team is not focused and that is on the coach. To constantly blow lead after lead after lead tells me that the coach is not getting the message across. Are the players partially responsible? Yes. But you cannot exonerate the coach from this. Gentry is the leader and decision maker for this teams' play and it is his responsibility to find the right buttons to push, not the players to figure it out themselves.

 

[slinslin]

If only Dragic didn't make Matthews look like a star too.

He is still just going to be a backup PG in my opinion because he doesn't have that good passing ability and vision.

 

[jagu]

If only Dragic didn't make Matthews look like a star too.

He is still just going to be a backup PG in my opinion because he doesn't have that good passing ability and vision.

For now maybe, but he has plenty of time to learn these skills. I still think a lot of the TO's he makes are a result of inexperience. He doesn't make super bonehead blunder plays often and now he is starting to show that he can be a force offensively. He kind of reminds me of a poor man's Tony Parker. Matthews took 13 shots (made 6) and went to the line for 7 freethrows (the refs blew a whistle on every other play in the 3rd and 4th quarter). I'd hardly blame that on Dragic. He looked like he was playing good D out there, deflecting passes, and playing hard d out there.

 

[slinslin]

Passing and court vision aren't things you just learn, which PG has ever come in and actually learned that later. You either have it or not, Dragic has some which is good enough to be a very good backup but not enough to be a really good starting PG.

 

[jagu]

Passing and court vision aren't things you just learn, which PG has ever come in and actually learned that later. You either have it or not, Dragic has some which is good enough to be a very good backup but not enough to be a really good starting PG.

I think once he gets used to the league he may get better at it (he is already showing more improvement than last year with his passing). Even if he doesn't he can become a slashing type PG that can score inside. It's hard to find guards that can score around the rim and Dragic does that pretty well. Tony Parker was never a great passing PG and he was always great at getting inside and getting big men in foul trouble. Dragic can be that kind of disturbance in the lanes.

 

[slinslin]

Hope Grant Hill rests a week or two.

Lets face it we are not going to win more than maybe 2 games before the trade deadline anyway, might as well hope to develop Clark a little bit. I'd rather see Clark start then Dudley.

 

[Sunburn]

Passing and court vision aren't things you just learn, which PG has ever come in and actually learned that later. You either have it or not, Dragic has some which is good enough to be a very good backup but not enough to be a really good starting PG.

I don't remember Nash lighting the passing lanes up when we first drafted him and he turned out to be pretty good at it.

 

[elindholm]

I'm not sure whether court vision can be learned, but Dragic could certainly improve his ball handling, by a lot. I don't know why in the hell he hasn't done so already. What does he think he's getting paid for?

 

[elindholm]

I don't remember Nash lighting the passing lanes up when we first drafted him and he turned out to be pretty good at it.

That's kind of a stupid example, since Nash is a unique case in the history of the league.

 

[nashman]

^ Stupid example or not its true, Nash took awhile to develop or he would have never been traded.

 

[elindholm]

^ Stupid example or not its true, Nash took awhile to develop or he would have never been traded.

The point is that it's useless to use unique cases as bases for comparison. You might as well say that every 6' 4" guy can become a dominant post player because Barkley did.

 

[Covert Rain]

This game just highlights the two things wrong with this team. First and foremost defense. Second, when our shots are not falling, no inside game. During Utah's run, we had 1 shot in the lane. ONE. No inside game.

To highlight how bad this team has gotten defensively (the bench was playing defense earlier in the year), our bench now ranks 2nd to last in the NBA in opponent scoring. Only New Jersey is worse.

In typical Suns fashion, we have the 10th best scoring bench in the entire NBA but 2nd worse defensively.

You want to know how important bench scoring in in the NBA? Look at the top 4 teams in the NBA.

• Cleveland - 19th best scoring bench
• Lakers - 22nd best scoring bench
• Boston - 25th best scoring bench
• Denver - 18th best scoring bench

Overall that tells me that top teams of course would like their benches to be competent offensively but defense overall is king in the NBA.

We averaged last year 109.4 PPG. All this talk of going back the "old Suns" has not managed to do much offensively. We currently are at 109.9 PPG. We are not really any offensively better then last year. We just traded high percentage shots in the paint for jump shooting.

At the same time we have gotten worse defensively. Suns are ranked 2nd worst team in the NBA on defense both overall and from the bench.

This team is the 7th seed and falling fast. I will call it now. We need to make multiple moves (or one hell of a multiplayer trade) by the trading deadline to even make the playoffs IMO.

 

[Mainstreet]

WHAT???? Dudley wasn't very good tonight, but Clark was an outright disaster. He had a plus-minus of -14 in 7 minutes, and this is one case in which that statistic really does tell an accurate story. If you aren't sure, watch the game again and fast-forward to the moments when Clark is on the floor.

I guess I've made the conversion that Dragic, Lopez and Clark are the Suns future so they should get more time. Dragic and Lopez have made significant improvement with more minutes. It's not like the Suns are going anywhere. I like Dudley but he is not the Suns future. This team is sinking fast and I don't see them pulling out of it. Also I'm tired of Amare's uninspired effort.

 

[Sunburn]

The point is that it's useless to use unique cases as bases for comparison. You might as well say that every 6' 4" guy can become a dominant post player because Barkley did.

I drew the original parallel because Nash is our point guard. Dragic can develop. His "court vision" is not bad in my opinion. Actually shows flashes of brilliance at times. I've seen him make many nice passes. This isn't just some guy off the the street. We're not trying to turn just any old guy into the next Steve Nash. We drafted him cuz we thought he showed promise as a future point guard in the nba. And he has developed astonishingly well so far. You comparing what I said to being able to turn any guy into a hall of famer is a huge overgeneralization and exxageration to my initial comment. He may not become the next Steve Nash passing wise (then again, he might, you don't know), but he can definitely develop. He's already shown signs of it . . . a la Nash.

 

[Chaplin]

I guess I've made the conversion that Dragic, Lopez and Clark are the Suns future so they should get more time. Dragic and Lopez have made significant improvement with more minutes. It's not like the Suns are going anywhere. I like Dudley but he is not the Suns future. This team is sinking fast and I don't see them pulling out of it. Also I'm tired of Amare's uninspired effort.

Why not? He might not be future starter material, but every team needs guys like him and he's still relatively young. Same with Lou.

Sorry to tell you and everyone else on here, we're not going to trade away 9 of our 12 players.

 

[Covert Rain]

I guess I've made the conversion that Dragic, Lopez and Clark are the Suns future so they should get more time. Dragic and Lopez have made significant improvement with more minutes. It's not like the Suns are going anywhere. I like Dudley but he is not the Suns future. This team is sinking fast and I don't see them pulling out of it. Also I'm tired of Amare's uninspired effort.

Why not? He might not be future starter material, but every team needs guys like him and he's still relatively young. Same with Lou.

Sorry to tell you and everyone else on here, we're not going to trade away 9 of our 12 players.

Yes, I don't get that either. Why not? Dudley should be in your future plans. He has proven to be a very good defender at times. He has extended his range. At the very least he is the type of player you want on your bench and I think he is going to get better.